I need a fix 'cause I'm goin' down...

<-- Me, a 17 year-old, pink-haired Rock 'n' Roller...

Listening to Ben Folds a loud as your thin apartment walls can take it. Candles. That clean-house smell... what could be better? Possibly only Chinese take-out. And that's highly do-able.

It's been a completely bizarre couple of days. Last Saturday I woke up at nine, made a pot of coffee (which I never do), made fresh juice (which I rarely do), turned on the stereo (which I used to do all the time), and put a chicken in the crock pot with potatoes, carrots and mushrooms (which I haven't done since I moved to DC). Tim woke up and thought I'd lost my mind (which he does pretty regularly). In reality, I kind of reclaimed that summer-feeling that I used to get at home in Crawford when I'd wake up like a mad, cake-baking fool, spend half the day laying on my picnic table in a bikini with sun-in in my hair, then listen to my 21-disc stereo on random and stare at my bedroom ceiling until dinner time.

I'm sick of the TV. I have it on so often that it's ruining my ability to use my senses and turning me into an apartment zombie. Instead of all that bullocks, I'm going back to 1998, when I had no cable and the 3 available local channels were so depressingly silly that we only turned the tube on when we rented a video from the library. Before we got cable Mom and I would listen to music, eat dinner at the table and play rummy until we got bored (or, occasionally, drunk. Don't judge, we both turned out alright). Anyway, I used to make art until my fingers were blue and I thought my brain would fall out. Every piece of clothing I bought before 2002 has a paint stain on it somewhere.

Ok, maybe it's because I didn't have a job then and my only real responsibility was to not fail high school or become a teenage casualty. Maybe it has nothing to do with the TV. But I know that when the TV is off, I feel better about my life. Like I might get paint in my hair again and stop being so fat and dull. God, wouldn't that be nice?

The whole week seems to reaffirm how bad I need sunlight and the Down-and-Dirty Process, also known as making something new. After that great Saturday (which ended with going out and getting to eat the perfect piece of cake at Brittany's house), Sunday was "meh?" and Monday was good because Jeremy and Mae came over to eat Tacos, play a little Jeopardy, and throw popcorn at the State of the Union.

Tuesday and Wednesday were essentially wretched. I had so much nothing to do at work that I scrubbed the entire kitchen clean from top to bottom and I don't think anyone noticed I wasn't at my desk for over 2 hours. The antibiotics from The Staph make my stomach hurt like I've been eating Tim's socks and so this 10-day stomach ache combined with a sense of utter boredom and wasted potential finally made me so sick and tired I had to go home. (I did get up and go to a Financial Planning Seminar, where I learned that I, in fact, should not sign up for a 401-K.)

Today is better though. Today is a good day. It's nothing major, but at work I've been getting the chance to do more and more design, more work on the marketing and PR side of things, which is as close to make a collage about drugs, sex, and Rock & Roll as I'm going to get in the legal staffing biz. And on top of it, my boss actually likes what I come up with. So there's a chance I'll get to do more.

And the TV will be off more and more often, and the stereo will be on.